4 i On the ORIGIN and STRUCTURE of, See. 



ty of Europe inherit neither appellations, as a peculiar order, 

 nor titles of honour, nor official functions, except fuch as they 

 manifeflly have acquired from the feudal arrangements. 



IN order to prevent miftakes, it is neceflary to add further, 

 that the intermixture of nations which the conqueft produced, 

 the freedom which men of profeffions that appeared ignoble to 

 the conquerors pofleffed, and which men of fervile condition 

 acqiiired, and the differences which were conftantly increasing 

 between the wealth of individuals, neceffarily introduced a real 

 diverfity in the ranks of freemen. Accordingly, in the more 

 uncultivated diftricts, where the tribes or clans of the predomi- 

 nant nations retained, for fome time, their genealogies, fuch 

 tribes arrogated a degree of fuperiority ; and, in the richer 

 countries, though the clans foon difappeared, wealth and de 

 fcent not only produced fuch diftinctions as we know arife from 

 them in civilized times, (diftinclions then attended with no ab- 

 folute feparation of ranks) but, by means of the vaft influence 

 which the imperfection of law fuffers them to ufurp, introduced 

 into the flruclure of fociety, and even into the codes of politi- 

 cal inftitutions, a manifeft tendency to the conftruclion of that 

 patrician order and ariftocratic authority, which, during the feu- 

 dal ages, nearly monopolifed the fovereignty of the European 

 nations *. 



HICKES thinks, that the praftice of ufing two names came to prevail in England in the 

 Norman times ; and that, during the crufades, the cognomen became a nomen gentile. 

 Drffert. p. 29. 



* THE Bavarian laws enaft, that, in cafe of blows given in a tumult or meeting, the 

 offender fliould pay a fine, " untcuique fecuntlum fuam genealogiam." And, in cafe of a 

 fedition, while the principal perfons engaged in it (called, however, fimply homines) in- 

 curred a fine of 200 folidi, the populi minores and liberi paid only 40 folidi. fit. 2. 

 c. 3. and 4. And, in c- 20. five genealogies are mentioned which are entitled to a double 

 fine ; and the Agilolfingi, from among whom the duke was chofen, had right to a quadru- 

 ple fine. In A. D. 797,. the nobiliores paid, for difobeying a fummons, four folidi, 

 while the ingenui paid two, and the liti one. BALUZ. />. 278. By L L. Vifig. lib. 6. tit. i. 

 robiles potentiorefque perfonae, ut primates palatii, eorumque filii, were not to be ex- 

 pofed to torment, on account of an accufation of theft, <rr. ; and a perfona inferior was 

 forbid to accufe nobiliorem fe ve! potentiorcm. 



It 



